Apple

By Frank Catalano The future of tablets in our schools may not be coming from Cupertino. Or even the U.S. Despite the craze around Apple’s iPad, it’s only been two years since the device was introduced, and that may not be enough time to separate fad from trend over the long term in education. And … Continue reading Which Device Will Win the Tablet Battle? →

There’s been speculation for months now — at least since the release of the Steve Jobs biography — about Apple’s plans to take on the textbook publishing industry. And today at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, we finally got a glimpse of what the company has been planning since long before the death of … Continue reading Did Apple Just Reinvent the Textbook? →

One of the many things I find fascinating about Steve Jobs’ textured life was his education. From CNET’s obituary: He attended Reed College in Oregon for a year but dropped out, although he sat in on some classes that interested him, such as calligraphy. After a brief stint at Atari working on video games, he … Continue reading A Tribute to Steve Jobs →

Apple held a press event today at its Cupertino headquarters, unveiling a variety of improvements to its line of iPods and iPhones, including an update to its mobile operating system and a brand new version of its wildly popular iPhone. As always happens around these Apple announcements, there’s a flurry of excitement — before, during, … Continue reading Can Apple Products Pave the Way to Personalized Learning? →

More college are being drawn to computer science degrees because of media’s glamorous portrayal of this traditionally geeky career path, today’s New York Times article suggests. Movies like “The Social Network” and Apple’s slick ad campaigns have created celebrities out of Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, and with tech company net worth numbering in the … Continue reading Computer Science: Not Just for Geeks Anymore →

Apple is holding its big developers’ conference this week in San Francisco, and the event kicked off on Monday with a keynote unveiling some of the new products and features Apple has in store. This includes upgrades to both its Mac and mobile operating systems. Apple also introduced a new product, iCloud that will store … Continue reading Does Apple’s New iCloud Offer Anything New for Education? →

Eighth-grade students at the Presidio Middle School are trying out using the iPad instead of the textbook as part of a pilot study. Here’s what they have to say about it. Lenny Gonzalez KATE NAKATO You can watch videos and it explains stuff to you. The “view in motion” goes step by step with you … Continue reading What Do Students Like About the iPad? →

For more detail about my visit to the Presidio Middle School’s iPad algebra class, here’s the complete Q&A with eighth-grade teacher Jeannetta Mitchell. She talks about the practicalities of forgoing the traditional textbook and seeing students find different ways of learning the material. Far from being afraid of the technology — or believing that it … Continue reading Teaching With a Tablet: One Educator’s Experience →

By Sara Bernard Autism spectrum disorders now affect roughly 1 in 110 hundred children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Difficulty communicating with others, reading facial expressions, and interpreting social situations are just a few of the symptoms of the disorder. Enter the app world. Children with autism … Continue reading Apps: A Breakthrough for Autism, Too? →

The app I mentioned last month, Motion Math is now available on iTunes, and has already been awarded the Children’s Technology Review’s Editor’s Choice Award for Excellence in Design with 4.5 stars. Here’s how it works: The game follows a star attempting to return to its home in a far-away galaxy by moving through different … Continue reading Motion Math App for Kids →

Leslie Rule is studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the Technology, Innovation, and Education (TIE) program. She specializes in hands-on, in-depth, project-based workshops using geo-apps, mobile devices, and storytelling techniques to explore place and community. By Leslie Rule We first got wind of the iPad in January 2010, released April 3, 2010 … Continue reading iPad: Game-changer, fad, or the future? →

Fred Koch is a K-4 Technology Coach for Lake Forest, Illinois School District, an award-winning music educator, and a Google Certified Teacher. Like most technology coaches working in elementary schools, Fred wears a couple of hats. His primary responsibility is to help teachers become more comfortable with tech tools that offer engaged teaching and learning … Continue reading 5 Fun Ways to Engage Grade Schoolers →

“It’s a slow-moving pharmaceutical market,” says Matt MacInnis, the CEO of Inkling, a startup working on digital textbooks. “The professor writes a prescription, and the student goes to fill it.” The quote is from a Newsweek story called “Textbooks’ Digital Future,” which describes the the tug-of-war between not just print-versus-digital, but static-digital versus interactive-digital publishing … Continue reading Overview of the Digital Textbook Movement →

Interesting quote by a prescient analyst about the future of textbooks, in this article in ABC News about the growth of iPad in classrooms. “Long term, the biggest threat to publishers will be if there’s some kind of major adoption of open access (free course material), meaning there is a change in how college instructors … Continue reading Use of E-Textbooks to Grow With iPads →